


Safe as Houses

by belovedmuerto



Series: An Experiment in Empathy [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Bromance, Empathy, Gen, Sussex, a rad bromance, epic bromance is still epic, psychic!john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John isn't getting better, and Sherlock aims to do something about that. This is the direct sequel to "I See You Through", though it's numbered as 4 in the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe as Houses

**Author's Note:**

> And here it is, the continuation of this story. Once again, many many thanks go to my wonderful beta, Castiron. And now it is with great glee that I announce I have a Brit-picker! Thank you red_adam, I owe you several batches of cookies. Any remaining Americanisms are entirely my own fault.
> 
> Though it's a general idiom, title this time around is from "Never Let Me Down Again" by Depeche Mode.

The first time Sherlock takes John along to a crime scene post-Pool Incident (or, as we will learn, post-”Oh, dreadfully sorry I infected you with emotions in order to save your life” Incident, as John refers to it), John loses consciousness approximately five steps beyond the police tape. He has time to think a fleeting curse that his attempt to rebuild his walls has failed epically, and with no more warning than a strangled “Oh god,” he crumples to the ground like a dropped marionette, with about as much grace. Sherlock promptly follows suit by vomiting the tea and toast he’d had for breakfast before getting Lestrade’s text. Everyone stares in shock, right on down to the bobby manning the barrier.

When John comes to, Sherlock is crouched over him, radiating everything John’s feeling back at him, making it about ten times worse, echoing in his head, with a death grip on his wrist and a furrowed brow. John can tell immediately that Sherlock is trying, trying oh so very hard, to clamp down on the rioting emotions and find his usual detachment. He can also tell it isn’t working. _Fuck, this was a terrible idea. We really need to work on dealing with this shit. Why can’t everyone just_ stop _for a while?_

“Are you all right?” Sherlock asks, voice low and strained. As if he doesn’t already know the answer. John is probably the only person on the planet Sherlock is ever polite to, and he only ever does it when it’s completely ridiculous to do so.

“God, no.”

Anderson is laughing in the background, and John is taken by a sudden and insanely intense desire to take every negative emotion the man has ever felt and twist them until he can never feel anything else, until his insecurities and pettiness and jealousies and infidelities are warped around him and he’s left a gibbering, insane wreck. No matter that such a thing is probably impossible, he’s really eager to give it a go.

Sherlock’s eyes widen just a fraction; no one but John would be able to tell, but John has nearly all of Sherlock’s expressions memorized by now. Sherlock is slowly regaining control of his expression, smoothing his features into his usual mask of indifference, smoothing the creases from his brow. “John, as much as I would delight in such an occurrence, that would, by your quite rigorous definition, be Very Not Good. We can’t afford bail right now.”

“No one would know,” John hisses, glaring one of Sherlock’s glares at Anderson. “I wouldn’t even need to touch him.”

In an interesting reversal of roles, Sherlock’s face twists into a moue of distaste. “Please don’t, John.”

John breaks his glare to look up at Sherlock. “Right. Right, sorry.” He shakes his head vigorously; this doesn’t help with the headache he fears will be a migraine before the end of the day. Everything hurts. OK, so before the end of the next hour is a more likely prognosis for that migraine.

Sherlock deigns to put down one knee on the pavement. (There go that pair of trousers.) He helps John sit up and puts an arm around his shoulders. “Can you stand, you think?”

“God Sherlock, your breath stinks.” John realizes why. “Did you vomit?”

“Er, yes.” Sherlock grimaces. “Right after you fainted.”

“I don’t faint.”

“I’d beg to differ. C’mon, up you get.”

Anderson laughs harder as the two men struggle to their feet. Sherlock absolutely refuses to use a cane, though he’s still limping and may never get rid of it (yet he still manages to look like a goddamn swan most of the time, and John doesn’t know how he does it); John’s limp has been returning off and on since his mental walls were razed at the pool. Between the two of them, it’s an unintentional study in physical comedy.

Were it anyone else, a giggle might be forgivable. Were it one of them laughing at the other, it would nearly be expected. But it’s Anderson, and John _growls_. Sherlock shushes him. They both glare. Neither of them knows it, but they have the same glare these days. Lestrade notices and files this away.

“Jesus Christ Anderson just shut the fuck up already!” Lestrade yells as he crosses the scene to their side. The entire scene goes instantly silent, including Anderson. “Alright, you two?”

Sherlock snorts at the DI.

“Alright; touch of something going around, I should think,” John adds, always quick with the excuses--he’s had an entire lifetime of practice, after all.

Lestrade makes a sound of acknowledgment. “Sherlock,” he begins, voice questioning.

“In a minute, Lestrade.”

“Fine, take all the time you need. Only forensics is getting antsy.”

“Tell Anderson to fuck off for a while,” John supplies, smiling like the keen edge of a very sharp knife.

Lestrade gives him a concerned look, files this away for future reference as well, and heads back over to the scene to try to placate his people.

“John, what’s wrong?” Sherlock asks, urgent, leading John away with a hand on the back of his neck (and don’t think Lestrade doesn’t notice that as well, because he does). John is never like this; he’s unfailingly polite, even to people he doesn’t like. He’s never rude, he’s certainly never mean, there must be something terribly wrong. Sherlock’s trying, still trying to calm his friend down, and it isn’t working and oh this was a bad idea and his stomach is churning.

John takes a deep, shuddering breath on the other side of the police tape. Things are a bit softer on this side, muted. The rage and sorrow left behind by the murder don’t buffet him quite so hard on this side. He only wants to kill Anderson a little bit on this side of the blockade, instead of a lot. As it turns out, police tape forms at least something of a psychic barrier as well as a physical one. That might come in handy at some point, if John ever decides it’s safe to leave the flat again.

“Sherlock, I can’t stay here. This is bad. I oughtn’t to have come.”

“John, I need your help.” It’s as close as Sherlock will come to admitting his worry in public.

“I’m not going to be of any help like this, Sherlock. I’ll be lucky if I can still stand up straight in half an hour. I thought I was doing fine, but I can’t block anything out. Everything I’ve been trying to do the past few days is gone.”

“You said, John--”

“I know what I said!” John snaps. He sighs immediately, grabs Sherlock’s arm. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s just that it’s getting to me right now. I can’t keep myself separate from what’s going on in there, and Scotland Yard are not helping. It'll swallow me up, I won’t be able to keep it from you if I go back in there. I’m not strong enough. You’ll do better without me, you won’t be able to see anything otherwise.”

“What do you need, John?”

John chuckles unhappily. He pictures himself huddled on their sofa, covered in a thick woollen lead-lined blanket, sipping very hot tea and eating biscuits. Not that the lead-lining would actually help him block anything out, but it would make him feel better about things in general.

Sherlock smiles a little at the image. This is something they’ve only discovered in the past few days; they can send pictures to each other. Sherlock likes to send John pictures of steaming mugs of tea instead of demanding them out loud. He finds it endlessly amusing; John, not so much (except he really does).

John knows it’s something to do with his weird second peculiarity, and suspects it also has to do with their fun mind-meld the other week, the one that had sent him running from the flat after he’d projected on Sherlock. They’ve seen each other’s entire lives at this point, and he thinks that because that’s been taken care of, it’s easier for them to direct what the other sees. Or something. Maybe. He’s really just making this shit up as he goes along. _God I miss my Gran; she’d know what to do._

“Will you be ok to get back to the flat on your own? I can hurry if you’ll wait.”

John sighs. He doesn’t have the cash for a cab and he can’t trust that the machine will accept his card without giving him hell for taking all its memories. “Hurry, alright? I’ll be over there.” He gestures vaguely to the other side of the police cars.

The interesting murder that Lestrade had promised turns out to be not interesting after all. Sherlock wraps things up as quickly as possible. This isn’t nearly as quickly as it should be, and he has to take a moment to acknowledge and suppress his frustration at that. The emotions filtering through from John are, at best, a distraction (at worst: debilitating). It took far longer for him to see the detail he needed than it should have, especially given how pedestrian this particular crime was.

Then he catches sight of John, leaning against a wall a little beyond the police cars, rigid with tension. So rigid with tension that he’s vibrating with it. John has his eyes squeezed shut and is radiating emotion. He’s also murmuring to himself, mostly gibberish; the constable at the barrier is giving him wary sidelong glances and trying to edge away surreptitiously. It’s like walking into a wall of pain, it slows Sherlock down and he has to force himself forward to John’s side. Things are bad if John is affecting the moods of those around him without realizing it.

“John?”

John hisses, presses the palms of his hands to his eyes.

“What’s wrong, John?”

John merely moans softly in reply, seemingly incapable of articulating his pain.

“Migraine?”

John nods.

“Auras? Photosensitivity? Nausea?”

John nods again.

“OK. Let’s go. Can you walk?”

“Maybe?” John whispers. It hurts to even think in anything above a whisper. The pale daylight against his eyelids hurts. Everything hurts.

Sherlock unwraps the scarf from around his own neck and blindfolds John with it. “Does that help?’

John sighs in apparently relief, nods minutely.

“You should have gone home, John. Don’t do this to yourself on my account.” He grabs John’s hand and leads him out of the alley. John only stumbles once.

“No cash,” he murmurs, floating in Sherlock’s wake. “Machines don’t like me.”

They catch a cab miraculously fast, and once inside, Sherlock grabs John’s hand again, pushes the sleeve of his jacket up and grabs his forearm with his other hand. This new ability, this new game only works with skin contact. With a deep breath, Sherlock shuts his eyes and conjures the only thing he can think of that might possibly help drown out the onslaught John is suffering from.

Sherlock remembers the first time he saw the ocean. The whole family had gone on holiday to Sussex, to the family house there, even Father, and Mycroft took three year old Sherlock down the steep cliff-side path to the tiny beach nearby. Sherlock had been fascinated by the sound, by the sight, by how small it made him feel. The ocean was incredibly soothing, it was one of the only things he’d ever found that could give him the peace of a quiet mind (it was also a lot less expensive than the things he discovered later would be).

He’d spent large portions of every holiday after that (once he learnt how to sneak off on his own, which didn’t take long) sitting with his knees curled up to his chest on that beach watching the never ceasing waves and getting steadily soaked with the sea spray. His mother had always tutted at him over the fact that he’d ruined all his clothes with salt.

He concentrates on the memory, on the picture of the vast expanse of blue water, on the sound (even though he has no idea if that will transfer) of crashing waves, on how it makes him feel, and he gives it to John. John’s only reaction is to cling to his hand and try not to cry from the pain he’s in. He hunches over against Sherlock, trying to curl in on himself, trying to flinch away from the headache that’s making him feel as though his head really will explode any second. Sherlock tries to lean over him, to be soothing, to protect him, until he’s breathing on John’s neck. John’s clutching at his hand hard enough to grind the bones together, but then Sherlock is pretty sure he’s bruising John’s arm with his grip.

John stumbles from the cab when they arrive back and Baker Street. Sherlock has abandoned him to bound over to the door. “Sherlock,” he croaks, “I can’t see anything.”

Sherlock is already back at his side, though, taking his hand and leading him into the flat.

“Stairs, John,” he says, voice low. “Hang on, let me get the door.”

Sherlock takes John’s jacket and flings it somewhere. “Sofa or your bed?”

“Bed, please.” John sounds on the brink of tears at this point, which is good as he’s actually crying behind the scarf and doesn’t want Sherlock to know. It’s much better in the flat than outside where all the people are, but he’s got a full-blown migraine at this point, and for some sadistic reason migraines tend to amplify his power; the flat isn’t nearly the haven it usually is. He won’t take off the scarf until he’s sure the light won’t actually kill him, and he’s pretty sure crying himself to sleep is his best option right now.

“Sherlock, I might throw up on you.”

“Nonsense, you’ll be fine. You might pass out again, though. Stairs, John.” Sherlock leads John into his bedroom and to the bed, where John collapses gratefully. Sherlock takes John’s shoes off and helps him lie back. “Do you have anything for the headache?”

John shakes his head, then speaks. “No, wait. Co-dydramol, under the sink. Just one. Might help.” John is gasping by the time he’s finished speaking, and he rolls over on the bed, pulling one of the pillows over his head and groaning.

Sherlock returns shortly with the painkiller and a glass of water, helps John with that, and then sits beside him. “Do you need anything else, John?”

“Sleep. Death. Ocean?” John’s voice trembles to match the rest of him.

“It helps?”

“Please,” John breathes.

Sherlock obliges him, curling up next to John and laying his hand against the back of John’s neck, sinking back into the memories of the susurrating ocean. Eventually the painkiller kicks in and John drifts off to sleep.

***

John wakes up just before the knock at the front door. It's Lestrade; sometimes empathy is better than ESP. John listens to the sounds two floors down and pulls the scarf still wrapped around his head away. His head is still pounding, but it's a much more bearable pain now.

He can feel everyone in the building; Sherlock in the lounge, pacing and worrying, his feelings spiky and itchy; Mrs Hudson has already taken her soother and is feeling no pain at all (next time he has a migraine he’s sending Sherlock to borrow one of hers instead); and now Lestrade, who is worried and more than a little curious.

“Bollocks,” John murmurs. The word perfectly encapsulates not just his entire day but also the potentially worrying fact that Lestrade might figure things out, so he repeats it. Several times. Time to get up, to go make excuses, to deceive and obfuscate. He dislikes the lies about what he is, who he is, and he especially dislikes lying to Lestrade, who is a good man and a good detective and very nearly a good friend.

John changes from his jeans to a pair of pajama pants before he pads downstairs, still murmuring curses under his breath. He hears Lestrade and Sherlock talking before he sees them; Sherlock is telling Lestrade to bugger off because John's still feeling poorly and they might be contagious. _Good, let Sherlock do the lying, he's better at it anyway_.

John walks right between them and into the kitchen without greeting either man. His appearance makes Sherlock a liar, at least a little bit. But then, Lestrade already knew that Sherlock lies whenever it’s convenient and twice as often where John is concerned. Sherlock is not to be cowed, though.

“You should be in bed, John,” he accuses.

“Need tea.” John opens the refrigerator. “Or ale. Brilliant. Greg, you can stay. There's a leftover curry if you'd like. Don't think there's anything untoward in the microwave right now if you want to risk it. Tea, Sherlock? Or beer?”

Sherlock just feels his spiky feelings at John instead of answering, anger and worry warring for the top bunk, flounces across the lounge to flop in his armchair.

“Tea it is, then,” John murmurs, then raises his voice, “We've still got some of the sourwood honey left if you'd like.”

Sherlock makes a wordless disgusted sound in reply. John takes this for a yes; he'd caught Sherlock eating it straight out of the jar just the other day. Greg joins him in the kitchen, so after he puts the kettle on, John pulls two bottles of the really excellent abbey ale that he'd brought out of the fridge and opens them, hands one to the other man. “Cheers, Greg.”

“Ta,” Lestrade replies, tipping his bottle at John before taking a swig.

John leans against the worktop and tries to look unassuming and not like he's reading Lestrade's emotional state. _He's worried about us. About other things too, but mostly about us. And he suspects something. That's interesting. And worrying._

John hums in appreciation after he takes a swig of the beer. “Jesus, Greg, where the hell do you even find abbey ale around here? This is fucking amazing.”

Greg grins at him, his curiosity momentarily pushed aside. “I know some blokes who know some blokes who robbed some blokes.”

“Or you know a really good pub you aren't telling me about.”

“I can't discuss sources, John.”

John snorts.

The kettle starts to make noise, so John puts his drink down to put together Sherlock's tea. He uses the sourwood honey like he'd said he would; it really is remarkable stuff and it's too bad he'd have to order it from America just to get more. He wonders if Mycroft can be convinced that they need more.

Sherlock appears at his elbow, silent as the grave, snatches the tea just as John is finishing it, briefly touching the back of John's hand, instantly assessing John's current state of mind, how bad his headache is, and telling him thanks without words (and don’t think Lestrade doesn’t notice that as well). John smiles in response, and Sherlock flounces off again. It would work better if he weren't in shirtsleeves and the same ruined trousers he'd been wearing hours ago at the crime scene.

John turns back to Lestrade. They chat; John really does like the detective inspector, and he doesn't like lying to him. He's not sure what aroused Lestrade's suspicions, nor can he tell what it is that Lestrade suspects. He does his best to deflect, though, and Lestrade seems relatively placated, reassured that they're both feeling better and that the morning's incident is really nothing at all.

Lestrade leaves after finishing his beer. Sherlock stands at the window watching him go, arms wrapped around himself. John watches Sherlock from the kitchen doorway as he finishes his beer. It's late and his head is still pounding. Migraines always leave him feeling like he'd gone twenty rounds with a keg and lost miserably, and this one hasn't quite finished with him.

“I'm going back to bed, Sherlock.”

“Will it go away?” Sherlock replies.

John knows precisely what Sherlock is referring to, and he doesn't want to have this conversation right now, when he still can't quite think straight. He wishes briefly that this had never happened, damn the consequences, damn how much it hurt to even think of letting Sherlock go insane or die. He wishes he could keep a straight thought in his head around the constant onslaught of the emotions of everyone around him. He wishes everyone would just stop, just for a day, just for long enough to let him get a grip so he wouldn’t feel like screaming in despair anymore.

He wishes he hadn’t had that beer, as excellent as it was. “It might.”

“You're lying.”

John sighs. “I'm trying to make you feel better.”

“But you don't think it will.” Sherlock sounds certain.

“I don't, Sherlock, no.”

“Why not?” A note of pleading has crept into Sherlock's voice now.

“Because I've been like this my whole life? My Gran taught me how to build shields for myself when I was four, Sherlock. I'm told I cried an awful lot before then, and was always pulling at my hair.”

Feeling John's sadness, his recollections of his mother, Sherlock turns to look at him. “It wasn't your fault she killed herself, John. Surely you know that.”

“That's never stopped me from feeling like I should've done more. Sherlock, I really don't feel well, I'm going back to bed. You should play.”

“I should--?”

“You'll feel better. Might not keep me awake half the night if you can settle a bit. Play, please, Sherlock.” John leaves Sherlock staring after him and goes upstairs, where he takes off the rest of the clothes he'd been wearing all day, pulls on an old, ratty t-shirt, and crawls back into his bed.

A few minutes later, he's able to take a deep breath of relief when he hears Sherlock's violin start to sing.

**

Sherlock hates it when John tells him how he feels. Especially since John has never once been wrong when he's done so. How he feels shouldn't matter; it hasn't mattered for a long time how he feels about anything, why should it be so important to John? Emotions are a physical manifestation of irrationality, good for nothing more than the slightest of consideration during the course of an investigation and, indeed, the rest of his life. Sherlock far prefers rational thought and consideration to listening to his emotions the way John does.

So why does it seem to work so well for John?

Despite a cavernous and echoing lack of answer to this question, Sherlock realizes that John has need of something, if he can't manage to leave the flat without being assaulted by the emotional state of everyone they pass on the street. John has mentioned having mental walls against the world, and that they've been in a shambles since the Pool Incident. He can't seem to get them rebuilt here in Town. There seems to be too much interference from the city itself, from all the people in it.

Solution: get John out of London.

A quick phone call to Mycroft, much as he dreads speaking to his brother, let alone asking him for anything, solves this problem. Mycroft doesn't even ask for anything in return, which Sherlock knows will haunt him at a later date.

Before hanging up on his brother, Sherlock remembers to ask Mycroft for more of the sourwood honey. Mycroft chuckles before acquiescing to that request as well.

**

John allows himself one of his rare lie-ins, luxuriating in the warmth and comfort of his wonderful bed. He lets his thoughts wander, but they come back to the same thing they've been coming around to quite often of late: his peculiarities, this new connection with Sherlock, and how to deal with both. Even more important, how to get Sherlock to deal with both.

Something has to be done about his mental blocks, or he’s going to end up a shut-in. And he suspects that fixing that problem will require Sherlock’s active participation. He’s almost positive Sherlock isn’t going to want to help. Thus far, Sherlock has been obstinate in his refusal to do more than forgive John his grievous indiscretion in infecting him with empathy, and to use it occasionally to suss out John's mental state. Or to send John images of a steaming mugs of tea when he wants one. He seems to want nothing to do with it, and John isn't sure if he should be more insulted or hurt by that.

It has to be done, though. Sherlock will have to accept it and learn to deal with it. Or else John will have to leave. He suspects distance is the only thing that could really lessen the connection between them, and he doubts even that will truly eradicate it. Distance or death are their only options on that front, and considering his not wanting Sherlock to die is what got them into this in the first place, somehow he doesn’t think death is much of an option. He hopes Sherlock feels the same way.

John gets up in a hurry when things start crashing about downstairs. _Bloody hell, what's he doing now?_

Sherlock is pacing back and forth in the lounge, glaring daggers at his phone as he stabs out texts. “No, Lestrade, I did not say two days, you raving moron,” he mutters. Then he notices John in the doorway. “John! Excellent, I was just about to wake you. Get the tea started, get ready, we've a train to catch.”

“A train?”

“Yes, John, a train.” 

“To where?”

“We're going to Sussex.”

“We are?”

Sherlock stops mid-pace to give John a why-are-you-being-so-slow look. “Yes, John.”

“Case?”

Sherlock makes a humming sound and waves a hand in John's direction, turning his attention back to his phone as a new text comes in. “Oh, bloody Mycroft,” he murmurs, calmer now.

John shakes his head and goes to put the kettle on. There are three bags and Sherlock's violin case sitting by the door, one of them his duffel. Apparently Sherlock did the packing. Hopefully he didn't pack only books and chemistry equipment. Hopefully he packed socks.

They catch a cab to Victoria and are aboard the train for Sussex within the hour. Sherlock is almost immediately asleep, head against John's shoulder and snoring gently. John isn't surprised; although Sherlock had crawled into bed with him at some point last night, he hadn't stayed long and John is pretty sure he didn't do more than take a twenty minute nap. He probably spent the rest of the night planning whatever this is, and harassing his brother if his murmured epithet earlier had been any indication. John gets out his phone and texts Lestrade.

 _Apparently we've got to the mini-break portion of our relationship. Being dragged down Sussex with no idea why. I hope we don't end up in Brighton. JW_

John can joke about the fact that almost everyone assumes he and Sherlock are a couple with Lestrade, thankfully. At least he has someone to joke about it with, at least he isn't the only one who finds it sort of amusing (not to mention flattering; one would have to be blind not to realize that his flatmate is quite fit— until he opens his mouth, anyway). Greg understands, somehow, even if his people are constantly making terrible jokes and still calling Sherlock a freak and, when they think John can't hear, they still refer to him as Sherlock's pet. This hasn't served to endear them to him.

He gets a reply almost immediately (Lestrade had probably been waiting). _Mini-break? Mate, he told me you'd be gone for at least two weeks and not to bother either of you on pain of death. -GL_

 _What? JW_

 _He does realize it's a bit not good to threaten officers of the law with death, doesn't he? -GL_

 _Two weeks? JW_

 _That's what he said. You have a case on? -GL_

John looks down at his sleeping friend. He allows the look of consternation to settle onto his face, since Sherlock can't see it and start pouting. I have no idea. _I'll keep you posted if he doesn't hide my phone. JW_

 _Right. Have fun, you two love birds. -GL_

John rolls his eyes and puts his phone away.

**

There's a man in a uniform waiting for them on the platform in the tiny village where they get off the train. He grabs their bags and heads off towards the car park. Sherlock follows him without a word, John trailing confusedly in his wake.

The uniformed man leads them to a unassuming ridiculously expensive car and puts their bags in the boot. He then hands Sherlock the keys, tips his hat with a deferential “Mr. Holmes,” and walks off in the direction of the village high street.

Sherlock rolls his eyes and hands John the keys.

“Sherlock, what is going on? Who is that bloke?”

“You know, I don't think I know his name. One of Mother's lackeys, I presume. Or Mycroft's. Hopefully Mycroft’s; I’ll kill him twice if he told Mother.” Sherlock shrugs and climbs into the passenger side of the car.

 _I should really be used to this by now._ John climbs in behind the wheel and starts the car. “Where are we going?”

“I'll give you directions. You'll see.”

John glares Sherlock's own glare at his friend. “Oh will I then? Fine.”

Despite Sherlock's amusement, John maintains his strop all the way out to the South Downs and then a bit further until he's starting to wonder if they're simply going to drive straight over a cliff into the sea. Sherlock is grinning by the time they pull up in front of the cottage that is quite remarkably in the middle of absolutely nowhere, surrounded by flowers, and bounds out of the car with the unabashed enthusiasm he usually reserves for really disgusting murders.

“What is this place?” John asks, following him to the front door and into the house. Sherlock's enthusiasm is infectious; it's nice to feel him feeling something close to contentment. It's been a while.

“Do you like it? It used to belong to the apiarist, but it's mine now. Mother gave it to me after I graduated.” Sherlock grins and flings himself into one of the squashy armchairs in the front room.

“This is... yours?”

“Yes John, do keep up. The big house is my family's as well, but I much prefer it here. We'll be left alone, it'll be quiet. If the village finds out anyone's in the big house, we'll see every last one of them in the next two days for some reason or another.” Sherlock waves a hand dismissively.

 _No, Sherlock wouldn't enjoy playing country gentry._

John goes back to the front door and looks out, seeing the big (very, very big) house to which Sherlock referred. Things settle into place.

“Sherlock, did you--? Thanks.” John knows that Sherlock did this for him; to get him out of London so he'd have some time to rebuild, regroup. So he wouldn't end up a shut-in like he'd started to fear. It's a really touching gesture that John is sure Sherlock doesn't want him to call attention to.

Sherlock smiles. “Get comfortable, I'll get the bags.”

John wanders through the cottage. The kitchen is fully stocked— there's catered food in the fridge, all neatly labeled with reheating instructions, there's wonderful tea and milk and cereal and bread, there's even a jar of sourwood honey in the cupboard, much to John's delight. He realizes this means that Sherlock had talked to Mycroft, to make this happen, and it gives him pause, knowing that Sherlock was willing to do that to help John out. The kitchen opens to a terrace with a lovely view over the Downs looking towards the not quite distant sea, a lovely garden and three empty bee skeps.

Upstairs, there's a bedroom with a bed that is wider than John is tall. The room is airy and open and bright. The bed looks decadently comfortable. There's another room that probably used to be a bedroom, but has been given over entirely to a chemistry lab.

 _Yep, definitely Sherlock's cottage._

There's a bathroom and a box room.

“Sherlock,” John calls from the top of the stairs, “there's only one bed.”

“I'll kip on the couch,” Sherlock calls back.

John wonders briefly how long that will last.

**

Sherlock carefully crawls into the bed at some point past three AM, careful not to jostle John or, he thinks, wake him.

John rolls over and spoons up against the taller man anyway. “Thought you said you'd kip downstairs,” he murmurs against Sherlock's shoulder. He feels more than hears Sherlock's chuckle.

“Hush.”

**

John passes the first couple days in the cottage in a haze of bliss. There are literally no people other than the two of them around for miles. The only emotions he feels other than his own are Sherlock's, and his isn't an unwelcome presence. Sherlock's emotions are familiar and very nearly comforting, spiky though they may be. John spends a lot of those two days lying in the ridiculous bed, or sleeping, or sitting in the back garden soaking up sunshine and gradually getting back to feeling like himself again. Even Sherlock, normally so antsy and in need of constant entertainment (supervision), seems content to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet.

**

Sherlock becomes aware of John's presence all at once, looks up from his microscope at the man standing in the doorway. John is sipping a mug of tea and watching him.

“How long have you been standing there?”

John shrugs as though this isn't important. “How long are we here, Sherlock?”

“As long as you need to be,” Sherlock replies, as this is the truth. He will stay here in the middle of nowhere with John for as long as it takes for John to fix what's wrong so they can go back to London, go back to working cases, go back to normal. Even if this requires him to resort to counting the number of bees on the entirety of the Downs, he will do this for John.

“You told Lestrade not to bug either of us for two weeks.”

Sherlock should have known Lestrade would say something to John. Should have known John would say something to Lestrade; they're friends. John makes friends so easily, he draws people to himself like a magpies to a shiny object. John glints like a diamond, even in the often overcast light of London.

Sherlock glares at John, but he repeats himself. “As long as you need to be, John.”

“Won't you get bored?” Concern colors John's voice and his thoughts. Even when he's a mental wreck, his concern isn't for himself. He doesn't like when Sherlock gets bored, and not just because Sherlock shoots the walls of the flat or eats all the honey or uses all the milk for arcane experiments. Sherlock's boredom makes everything feel slow and sad to John and he has a hard time coping with that.

“I have several experiments planned, all of which are delicate and time consuming. I'm planning to publish the results of at least two of them. I will not be bored, John.” _And even if I were, I would do my best not to drag you down with me._

John nods slowly. “Ok. I'm going to go for a walk in a bit. Care to join me?”

Sherlock looks at his notes, into the microscope again. “Give me forty minutes?”

“Alright. I'll be in the garden, then.”

Sherlock makes a noise of acknowledgment and returns his attention to his experiment. He's only vaguely aware when John wanders off again or of the thoughtful look on his friend's face.

**

John walks often during the first week. He walks and he thinks and he examines the imaginary field in his head where he spent years constructing a wall to keep the world at bay. Every time he looks, Sherlock is standing just behind him with one of his long-fingered hands on John's left shoulder.

His first wall is still there. It's made of the building blocks that his Gran had bought for him the first Christmas after they went to live with her (after their father dumped them with her and buggered off to parts unknown, never to be seen again). Harry had played with them more than he ever had, but he'd used them to build a wall, and for the first time in his life he couldn't feel everything that everyone around him felt. His Gran had taught him the rudiments of shielding at an even younger age, but that was the first time it had really stuck. When he had started on the stronger wall that had lasted him most of his life just about a year later, he'd built that in front of the smaller one, keeping it as a reminder, and as a memorial to his Gran. Looking at it, the little red building blocks knocked over on the ground like when he used to play Godzilla with them, he aches with missing her.

Still, it had been the best gift he'd ever received.

John surveys the damage in his head, the result of nearly forty years of work (maintaining and reinforcing) being smashed to bits in the space of one evening, with Sherlock always looking on, and he nearly despairs of ever getting things back to where they were.

He's not going to be able to do this alone.

**

Sherlock likes to walk early in the morning, practically before the sun has risen, and John obliges him because he's on holiday, damn it. It's not as though he can't take naps later in the day. His sleep schedule hasn't nearly evened out yet anyway.

They walk around the big house on one such early morning walk. Sherlock has never walked this way before, and John has been careful not to mention it, despite his curiosity. There's mist off the sea, the weather is bracingly cool, the house looks like it should be haunted (by something other than Sherlock's memories). There's a large walled garden in the back, and Sherlock leads him around it with one hand trailing against the old brick, feeling nostalgia (people do— sentiment) and bitterness in equal measure.

“I used that tree to climb over the garden wall when I was a boy,” he says suddenly, pointing up at the tree hanging over the wall. “I'd spend entire days wandering the Downs, playing imaginary games, or just watching the sea. I was fascinated with the sea when I was a child. It made my mind quiet.”

“How did you get back in? I don't see how anyone could scale this wall without being Spiderman.”

The pop culture reference is lost on Sherlock, and it earns John a confused look, but Sherlock answers. “Mycroft always left the side gate unlocked for me, and the kitchen door. He'd run a bath for me and put me to bed if I was out too late, or sneak dinner up for me from the kitchen if I missed it and was hungry. Sometimes he'd just bring me dessert.”

John waits for Sherlock to say more, but Sherlock takes off again around the garden, headed back in the direction of the cottage.

“How often did you come here?” John asks after a while.

“Every summer until Mycroft went to university. He didn't have time for it after that, too busy with his friends, with his club, with his studies. Mother didn't like coming out here if it was just her and me, because I spent too much time out of the house. She didn't have anyone for company.”

“He didn't abandon you, you know,” John offers, after a quiet moment. As per usual, John delves straight to the crux of the problem, laying all of Sherlock's feelings out for him in the harsh light of day, reflecting them back at him like the world's most fucked up mirror, so that he can't quite pretend they don't exist.

When Sherlock scoffs, John puts a hand on his arm. “He just grew up, Sherlock. You can't hate him forever for that, can you?”

Sherlock won't look at him. “I can certainly try.”

**

“John, what are you doing?”

John looks up from where he's rummaging about in the box room. Sherlock has poked his head out of the chemistry lab and is giving him an inquisitive look.

“Just mucking about, seeing what you've got in here.” John smiles.

“It's mostly chemistry equipment. Please be careful.”

“I am, Sherlock, don't worry— oh, what's this?” John leans over to grab something and when he straightens, Sherlock sees what it is and his breath catches behind the lump in his throat. His heart pounds.

“It's a bee!” John says, holding up the painting. It is, indeed, a bee. A honey bee, to be more precise. _Apis mellifera_. One of the honey bees that the apiarist who used to own the cottage kept.

John turns to Sherlock, grinning. “I like it. I think we should take him home with us. Sherlock, are you all right?”

“What? Yes, of course. Whatever you'd like, John. I should...” Sherlock ducks back into his lab, shuts the door softly. He collapses into the squashy armchair in the corner instead of going immediately back to his experiment. It can sit for a moment while he catches his breath and quashes the silliness happening in his chest; it's tight and difficult to breathe. He shuts his eyes and concentrates on each breath; shouldn't this be an involuntary action? Why isn't his sympathetic nervous system doing its job? Why is he having to force each breath into his lungs? Why does it hurt?

When he opens his eyes, John is crouched in front of him, a hand on his knee and concern in his eyes.

“It's yours,” John says.

“Of course it's mine, everything in this house is mine,” Sherlock retorts. His voice sounds just slightly off, too rough with emotion he will not admit to feeling.

“No. I mean, it's _yours_. As in, you painted it.”

Sherlock nods, clenches his jaw. “I painted it for My--” His breath catches. He forces it in, then out. “I painted it for my mother.”

John allows the lie. John lets Sherlock lie to him when Sherlock cannot stand to do otherwise.

“I've always had an interest in apiology; I spent a lot of time pestering the beekeeper when we were here.”

“You know, honeycomb would actually be a good thing to build mental walls out of. You should consider it.”

Sherlock grabs at the change of subject desperately, gladly. John is brilliant at knowing when to push and when to allow Sherlock an out. “Ridiculous, John. Honeycomb isn't nearly strong enough.”

John smiles and regains his feet. “You'd be surprised, actually.”

Sherlock scoffs and jumps up to return to his experiment. This has gone on long enough.

“Do you mind if I bring it home, Sherlock? The painting?”

“No, I don't mind. If you like it.”

“Thanks.” John briefly lays his hand over Sherlock's, it feels like a hug, like snuggling in bed for hours. Sherlock has to suppress a shiver of pleasure at the comfort.

“Tea?”

“Oh, you're asking aloud again? Bully for me.” But there's a smile in John's voice, and good-natured grumbling floats up the stairs as John goes down to the kitchen.

**

“What's she like, Sherlock?” John asks later that night, voice quiet in the dark.

Sherlock considers his mother for a moment. “Intimidating. Wonderful.”

John makes a hum of acknowledgment; that fits with the memories he'd seen of Sherlock and Mycroft's titan of a mother. “I miss mine, barely knew her. She was always sad.”

“I know.”

“I'm quite good with mums, you know.”

“She'd eat you alive, John.”

“Nah. I'm a charmer.”

“I'll take you to meet her sometime, then. We'll see who wins.”

**

“John, what are you doing?” Sherlock finds John sitting on a blanket near the edge of the cliff, cross-legged and eyes closed. It’s the sort of position that would be uncomfortable for an extended period of time, but the army taught John a lot about ignoring discomfort, and even more about using it to focus his mind.

“Meditating.”

“Why?”

“Come and sit down and I'll show you.”

Sherlock sits down next to John, makes himself comfortable. He doesn’t try to fold himself into the same position as John. John holds out a hand without opening his eyes, and Sherlock takes it.

“My Gran,” John says quietly, “taught me the basics of mental shields when I was four, but it didn't really take until I was about seven, and we'd gone to live with her. You see those little blocks there?”

“Yes.” Sherlock is standing behind John in a field somewhere nameless and timeless in the English countryside. They're in the shade of a huge old tree, and there's a mess of rubble surrounding them. In front of him Sherlock can see a small pile of red building blocks, such as a child would play with.

“Those were my first real wall. The rest of it is what's left of the wall that's been in my head for most of my life.”

“It's a mess.”

“It is. I'm working on sorting everything so I can start rebuilding. Hence the meditation.”

“That's going to take forever, John.”

“Less time than you'd think. Works differently in my head, for some reason. Would you like to see what it used to look like?”

“Yes.”

A new image fills Sherlock's head, a pleasant safe space surrounded by a dry-stone wall. Sherlock can just about see over the wall, if he stands on his toes. The wall is just a bit taller than John is, and there's a quaint little garden gate to one side; he can see the field beyond over the gate.

“You're going to have to do something similar,” John says.

“Why?”

“Because mine aren't strong enough to protect both of us, Sherlock. This wall was only ever meant for me, and I have no idea how to make it strong enough for two. I need you to help me with this, will you do that?”

Sherlock opens his eyes and looks at John. John, whose face has lost much of that pinched, pain-filled look he'd been wearing for weeks. Who is far happier out here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by the Downs and the sea instead of by the sea of people in London.

“If that's what you need, John, then yes.”

John opens his eyes and looks over at Sherlock. “Thank you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock shrugs off his thanks. “Now, explain what I need to do.”

And so they begin.

**

Sherlock builds a wall of titanium and steel. He builds a bubble around himself and John, because when he does the visual exercises John forces upon him (ridiculous), John is always standing behind him with one hand on his right shoulder. He doesn't leave a gate like John tells him to, and he doesn't believe John when he insists that Sherlock needs something semi-permeable with which to build.

John's wall is dry stone. He builds carefully and slowly, taking far more time with it than Sherlock does, making Sherlock feel impatient and irritated in the process. For days, every time he looks for John, Sherlock finds him sitting quiet in the garden or out on the cliff or in the bed or next to the fire, building a dry stone a wall just a bit taller than himself in a field with a huge old tree.

“What's the tree?” he eventually asks, curiosity getting the better of him. (His current experiment is not going well and if he doesn't take a break from it he will end up destroying something.)

“I don't really know, honestly,” John replies, setting a plate of food in front of Sherlock at the table in the kitchen. “It's always been there, when Gran started me doing the visual stuff. It's... huh, it's bigger than it used to be. I just realized that.”

“What's that mean?”

“No idea,” John replies, cheerfully enough. His lack of curiosity is astounding. John tucks into his dinner with relish, setting aside the intricacies of his own brain easily enough.

Sherlock ponders the tree that appears in a lush field somehow growing from sand in John's head for a long time. He reaches no conclusions.

**

“Sherlock, out of curiosity, did you listen to anything I told you about building mental walls?”

“Yes, of course I did, John.”

“You're _almost_ telling me the truth right now. I told you that you needed something semi-permeable.”

“Things will get through if it's semi-permeable, John. Titanium is better.”

“Titanium? _Fuck_ , Sherlock, no wonder there's an echo. I've had a headache for two days now because of you.”

“I've not had a problem. It's quite pleasant if you ask me.”

“I'm feeling everything twice, Sherlock!”

“...”

“Oh bloody hell, bugger _all_ this for a lark, I'm going for a walk.” John stomps out of the cottage before Sherlock can formulate a response.

Sherlock supposes that the headache John has indeed had for two days has much to do with his current irritation.

**

John returns to the cottage when he no longer wants to impale Sherlock with a spoon.

His walk helped to clear his head and he's remembered that Sherlock learns best through demonstration (on those rare occasions when he doesn't already know something as if by osmosis). Thus, a demonstration of the flaws in his logic regarding his titanium bubble is required. John is going to provide him with a demonstration. And then John is going to sit back and watch.

His headache starts coming back as soon as he gets close to the cottage, and he's not sure if it's because of the reverberation of emotions off metal walls, or if it's a preemptive strike by his brain against what it knows is coming.

John finds Sherlock in his lab, hunched over his microscope, looking like he'd been there for hours. Which he probably had been.

“Let's go into the village for dinner.”

Sherlock looks up at John. “I'm busy.”

“Too bad. Put it on hold and put some shoes on.”

The solid wall of “try to tell me no and find out just exactly how many different ways I can take you down without breaking a sweat” that John is projecting is rather a clue as to how carefully Sherlock should tread across these grounds.

“I'll be ready in fifteen minutes,” he answers. Best not to aggravate John when he's irritable. Tea is much less likely to appear as if by magic when John is irritable. And John's irritability, Sherlock has noticed, makes him itch. Inside his head. Normally it's Sherlock's own emotions (the ones he prefers not to acknowledge, thank you) that feel spiky and itchy. John's are generally far more soothing and rounded about the edges. Sherlock far prefers feeling John's emotions to his own.

John glares at him, knowing exactly how he feels and why he's being agreeable, but leaves it at that. He's not going to question a capitulating Sherlock, even if he's only doing it to placate John.

Sherlock is ready in half an hour, because he can never really let things go without the last word (or petulant dragging of his feet). John glares some more, taps his foot impatiently, but doesn't speak. He'll start yelling again if he does, and that will ruin his plans and his appetite and probably the rest of their trip. However long that may be.

**

As it turns out, titanium plating really isn't the best thing to build a mental wall out of. For one thing, as strong as it may be, it doesn't do thing-bloody-one to keep the emotions of other people out, even if those emotions are refracted through your best friend first. What it does do, however, is hold them in. It holds them in quite well, until the whole bubble is filled up with other people and their apathy and their happiness and their petty jealousies and all the little dramas that go on in a small town and _John knew this would happen_.

Sherlock drowns in emotion. He grits his teeth and bears it through most of dinner, treads the water of all the heightened emotions of a weekend night crowd in the only pub in a tiny village and he (thinks he) eats the dinner that John ordered for him and he engages John in conversation (complete gibberish on his part, actually, though John responds easily enough and never lets on) and by the time John is sitting back to enjoy his second pint, Sherlock is busy concentrating on his friend's aura, watching from below the surface of the emotions in his head, trying to figure out how much longer he can hold his breath and if he screams, will John actually hear him?

John's aura is the colors of the ocean: the deep blue-black of the depths, the stunningly gorgeous turquoise of the Caribbean, the blue gray of the surface under a cloudy sky, the deep almost royal blue that the Pacific looks in pictures, the almost-silver of sunlight glinting off the surface, the murky green of a lake he'd seen once, the churned-up white of sea foam, the dangerous grey of a stormy sea. All the colors of the ocean swirl through his aura, hugging around his body like a second skin.

He doesn't realize that John has been staring back at him for long minutes until he speaks. “Knock it down, Sherlock; it's not doing you any good.”

 _I don't know how._ Sherlock tries to break the surface in his head but can't seem to reach it, to draw breath. _I'm dying, John, save me._

**

The next thing Sherlock is aware of is fingers against his head, gently, gently sliding through his hair, against his scalp soothing, soothing him. He knows immediately that those are John's fingers in his hair, would recognize John's hands and his smell and his heartbeat anywhere.

“Back with us, then?” John asks, quiet. The room is dark but for the moonlight filtering through the sheers over the window. Sherlock is in the t-shirt he'd been wearing to sleep in and his boxers, propped against John's chest in his cottage, in his bed.

“Ugh,” Sherlock replies, oh so eloquent as always. He can feel John smiling behind him.

It's gone. The titanium bubble that had tried to kill him is gone.

“It collapsed right around the same time as you passed out in the pub,” John tells him.

“How did you get me back here?”

John chuckles; Sherlock feels it more than he hears it, vibration in John's chest. “Sherlock, I was a soldier and a medic, do you really think I've never had to carry a bloke draped over my shoulder?”

Sherlock is quiet; he can feel that he's going to be hungover from the headache tomorrow. He can't see John's aura anymore, which is for the best (ridiculous notion, auras). All he can feel is what John's feeling, and what John has draped over him, dulling the headache, soothing, soothing him.

“Why didn't it work?” Sherlock asks, eventually.

John starts out of his doze with a “Hmm?”

“It ought to have worked. Titanium is strong.”

“It's too strong, Sherlock. If we were telepathic it would have been fine, but emotions are far more fluid than thoughts. There's no way to entirely keep them out because there's too much of them in body language and tone and facial expression. That little bit will always get through, but if your wall's semi-permeable then they can get back out again. They don't get stuck in your head.”

“I don't like it, John. I don't want to know how other people feel all the time.”

“I know you don't, Sherlock.” John's voice drops in sadness, but he doesn't stop carding his fingers through Sherlock's hair, and Sherlock concentrates on that. “I”m sorry. I'd keep it all from you if I could, but I can't. It'll be better, once you rebuild.”

“I'm not cross with you, John.” And he's not, anymore. He's just not sure what comes next, or how long it will take him to learn to deduce around the constant distraction of how people feel. He wonders if it will ever feel less raw and immediate and like he's being flayed alive.

“It will, Sherlock,” John assures him, answering his unspoken worry instead of his actual words. “You'll be able to see and observe, and I'll be able to feel, and maybe we'll work even better together. My wall held tonight even though yours didn't. Once you rebuild things will be much better. You'll see.”

Sherlock doesn't reply, but tries to feel comforting things at John. He's pretty sure he fails spectacularly, but at least he tries. The thought counts with John, he knows this. After a few moments, John speaks again.

“I'm going to go to sleep now, ok?”

“Of course, John.” Sherlock sits up, slowly, so John can rearrange himself more comfortably for sleep. He waits, and when John has snuggled in for the night, he lies back down, head on John's chest, because John doesn't want him to go anywhere just yet. John might be Sherlock's favorite pillow at this point, but for John, Sherlock is more of a security blanket.

“Hair,” Sherlock murmurs into John's chest, and John smiles and starts to smooth his fingers through Sherlock's curls again. John doesn't stop until he's drifted off to sleep, fingers stilling slowly against Sherlock's scalp. Sherlock is content to remain that way, even though he doesn't sleep.

**

John wakes late the next morning. The covers are rumpled next to him, but Sherlock has been gone for a while; there's no spot of warmth next to John where Sherlock had been. John stretches and gets out of bed, pulls on a jumper against the chill in the air.

He checks the lab first, but Sherlock isn't there so he goes down to the kitchen and turns the kettle on. When he looks out the door to the garden, he finds his errant best mate.

Sherlock is sitting with his long legs stretched out before him on a blanket in the garden, and he smiles at the sight.

John takes his time making two mugs of tea, and then goes out to sit next to Sherlock, to offer whatever help might be needed, or at least the support and warmth of someone next to him.

“Show me?” John asks, quiet so as not to startle Sherlock.

Sherlock holds out a hand and John takes it.

The safe space in Sherlock’s head looks remarkably like their flat. Their chairs are there, and the kitchen is where it always is (yet strangely clean). The windows are gone, smoothed over with the same wallpaper that lines the other walls, but the door is still there. John peeks through it, opening it only a bare inch, and sees the field in his own head, which only makes sense if he thinks about it.

There are other differences, too: bees, for one. They buzz through the air, they replace the sounds of the city that aren’t there, and one lands on John’s hand for a moment before discovering that he doesn’t taste of pollen and taking off again. The flowers are another; most of the bees are diligently doing their duty with the flowers that are everywhere, rampant on every clear surface, a riot of color and shape. John wishes he could smell them, because he’s sure that it would be wonderful. What he does smell, however, is honey. Honey and beeswax.

John looks from the bees and flowers to Sherlock. Sherlock has numerous bees crawling over him, but he doesn’t seem bothered by them. He’s not paying John any attention, concentrating on carefully harvesting from the hives scattered throughout the room, nestled in among the flowers, and cutting the honeycomb into shapes.

John looks closer at the walls and realizes: Sherlock is cutting the honeycomb to match the pattern of the wallpaper in the lounge, and he has to stare at his friend in awe at that.

It’s, well: brilliant. Perfectly and entirely _Sherlock_. John leaves him to his building and stretches out on the blanket next to him. _We’re like the goddamn dynamic duo_ , he thinks. John chuckles at himself. _That’d be a lot funnier if Sherlock would actually get it._


End file.
